The Council on Academic Affairs voted on course revisions and heard the sociology department program review.

The CAA voted on three course revisions, with the first one being world archeology. This revision called for a name and course description change to reflect the content covered in the class.

The course will cover much of humanities pre-history, and before it served as a survey course that looked at major civilizations like the Sumerians and Aztecs.

The vote for the changes of the course passed unanimously.

The next revision came from the Office of the Registrar and registrar Amy Lynch wants the CAA to consider revising the undergraduate catalog to allow for more flexibility in accepting out of state credit.

“It means that someone can apply to have out of state credits apply,” CAA chair Marita Gronnvoll said.

This is because of the abrupt closure of ITT Technical Institute, the petition from the Registrar’s office said.

This will be on a person by person basis and depends on which credits will transfer.

The vote to allow this passed unanimously.

The last item to be acted on was a proposed online independent study course from the nursing department called independent study in nursing.

The course is described as a student choosing a topic they want to study with the help of a faculty member. An outline of the proposed work the student wants to do will have to be approved by the faculty and chair of the nursing department.

They want this course because it will help the students participate in research and study in nursing practice.

The vote for the independent study passed unanimously.

The CAA heard a program review about sociology given by the department’s chair Darren Hendrickson.

The report showed the enrollment numbers of the department compared to other universities and Eastern is consistently near the top of the chart when it comes to enrollment numbers in sociology.

The department has seen eight faculty members leave since 2008, but has also hired six new faculty.

The department is in good standing with the university.

The CAA has added a new item to its agenda for its next meeting. It is a new course from the psychology department called cross cultural psychology.

Samuel Nusbaum can be reached at 581-2812 or at scnusbaum@eiu.edu.